Read Chapter 24: A Duel of Wits

The morning light slanted through the breakfast room windows, catching the dust motes in golden suspension. Eleanor set down her teacup with practiced precision, the porcelain chiming against the saucer like a gavel calling order.

“A trial period,” she said.

Vane looked up from his newspaper, one dark brow arching with amusement. “A trial period.”

“Three weeks. Each week, we shall undertake a task together—something that tests our compatibility as partners. At the end of each week, we evaluate one another. If either of us finds the arrangement untenable, the marriage contract becomes void, and I retain full control of my inheritance.”

The silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant clatter of servants in the hallway. Vane folded his newspaper with deliberate slowness and set it beside his plate.

“You wish to audition me,” he said, “as though I were a new carriage horse.”

“I wish to ensure that I am not yoking myself to a broken one.”

A flicker of something—respect, perhaps—crossed his features. He leaned back in his chair, fingers drumming against the mahogany. “And what tasks shall I be performing? Shall I fetch your slippers? Dance attendance at every ball? Write you poetry in the style of Lord Byron?”

“Nothing so tedious.” Eleanor smiled, the expression sharp as cut glass. “The first task: you shall teach me to ride.”

Vane blinked. Whatever retort he had prepared died on his lips. “You cannot ride?”

“In London, I rode in carriages and walked on pavement. Horses were—are—quite beside the point.” She paused, correcting herself. The body she inhabited knew how to ride; Eleanor Ashworth had been on horseback since childhood. But Ava Chen had not, and the disorientation of merging the two selves was still an ongoing negotiation.

“You are an heiress of considerable fortune,” Vane said slowly. “You cannot mean to tell me you have never been taught.”

“I mean to tell you that I have not ridden in years, and I require a competent instructor. You are, I understand, accounted an excellent horseman.”

The compliment landed. She saw it in the slight relaxation of his shoulders, the way he tilted his head as though reassessing her. Vane was not a man easily flattered—which meant the flattery worked best when it was also true.

“Very well,” he said. “I shall teach you to ride. And week two?”

“You shall take me to Richard’s study and tell me everything you have not yet told me about the evidence he gathered against Beaumont.”

The temperature in the room dropped. Vane’s expression shuttered, the warmth bleeding from his eyes until they were hard as flint.

“No.”

“It is a condition of the trial.”

“It is a condition I refuse.”

“Then the marriage is void, and I shall take my inheritance and my aunt and remove myself to a cottage in Bath, where I shall live out my days as a scandalous old maid who reads law books and terrifies the local magistrates.”

Vane stared at her. The servants had gone quiet in the hall, as though the entire household held its breath.

“You would walk away,” he said slowly. “From everything. From the title. The protection. From me.”

“I would walk away from a man who will not meet me as an equal partner. You agreed to renegotiate this marriage, Marcus. You cannot renegotiate only the parts that suit you and leave the rest untouched.”

He rose from his chair, crossing to the window. The morning light caught the lines of his face, the grief etched there like old scars. When he spoke, his voice was quieter.

“Richard’s study is not a place for idle curiosity. It is a tomb.”

“I do not seek to disturb the dead,” Eleanor said softly. “I seek to understand the living. I held his journal in my hands. I read his words. He was gathering evidence against Beaumont—evidence that cost him his life. If I am to marry you, if we are to build something that can survive the storm you have told me is coming, I need to know what he knew.”

Vane turned. His face was unreadable, but his hands had curled into fists at his sides. “You do not understand what you are asking.”

“Then explain it to me.”

A long moment passed. Then, slowly, the tension in his shoulders eased. He came back to the table and sat down across from her, folding his hands before him.

“Richard was not merely gathering evidence,” he said. “He was building a case. A legal argument, meticulously constructed, that would have exposed Beaumont’s involvement in our father’s death and a dozen other crimes—fraud, forgery, the ruination of families who had crossed him. He was working with a solicitor in London, a man named Graves. When Richard died, the case died with him. Beaumont believed the evidence was destroyed.”

“But it was not.”

“No.” Vane’s jaw tightened. “It is hidden. Somewhere in that study, or beyond it. Richard was clever—cleverer than I ever gave him credit for. He knew Beaumont might come for him. He hid the evidence where only someone who knew him intimately would think to look.”

“And you have not found it.”

“I have not allowed myself to look.” The admission came reluctantly, as though dragged from him. “I could not bear to sift through his things. To read his private thoughts. To know that I was too late to save him.”

Eleanor reached across the table and placed her hand over his. He stiffened at the touch but did not pull away.

“The first task stands,” she said. “You will teach me to ride. And when I have mastered it—when we have proven we can trust one another in small things—we will face the study together. As partners.”

Vane looked at her hand, pale against his own. When he raised his eyes to hers, there was something raw in his gaze.

“You drive a hard bargain, Lady Ashworth.”

“I am a lawyer, my lord. It is what I do.”

---

The riding lessons began the following afternoon. Vane proved a demanding instructor—exacting, precise, utterly unimpressed by Eleanor’s attempts to disguise her mounting frustration.

“Heels down,” he called from the center of the paddock, arms crossed. “You are sitting as though you expect the horse to sprout wings and fly.”

“I am sitting as though I expect to fall,” Eleanor called back, gripping the reins with white-knuckled determination. The mare beneath her, a placid grey named Juniper, seemed entirely unbothered by her rider’s anxiety.

“If you expect to fall, you will fall. The horse knows your mind better than you do.” Vane approached, laying a hand on Juniper’s neck. “Stop thinking of it as a battle. You are not fighting the horse. You are dancing with it.”

Eleanor released a breath she had not realized she was holding. “I have never been good at dancing.”

“No?” Vane’s mouth curved. “I find that difficult to believe. You move through a ballroom with the grace of a blade.”

“A blade,” Eleanor repeated dryly. “I am not certain that is a compliment.”

“It is. I have always preferred weapons to flowers.”

Despite herself, she laughed. The sound startled them both—it was bright and unguarded, nothing like the measured tones Eleanor Ashworth deployed in company. Vane’s eyes softened.

“There,” he said quietly. “That is what I wished to see.”

“My complete lack of horsemanship?”

“Your ease. You hold yourself so tight, Eleanor. As though the world might strike you if you relaxed.” He stepped closer, close enough that she could smell the clean scent of soap on his skin. “You are safe here. I will not let you fall.”

Something in her chest shifted—an unwelcome warmth that she sternly suppressed. “Is that part of the task?” she asked. “Charming your prospective bride?”

“I am not charming you,” Vane said. “I am telling you the truth. There is a difference, I am told, though I have rarely practiced it myself.”

Eleanor looked down at him from the mare’s back. Sunlight caught the silver at his temples, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. He was handsome, she admitted—not in the porcelain way of the ton’s dandies, but in a harder, more elemental fashion. A man shaped by grief and duty and secrets.

“You are not what I expected,” she said.

“Nor you, what I expected.” He held out his hand. “Shall we try again? This time, I shall walk beside you. We will go slowly.”

She hesitated. Then she took his hand.

---

By the third day, Eleanor could manage a trot without clutching the pommel. By the fifth, she could post with something approaching grace. Word spread through the household, then beyond it—the Vane-Beaumont marriage was back on, but with conditions. The ton watched, delighted, as the Marquess of Vane was seen riding daily in Hyde Park alongside his sharp-tongued fiancée, her laughter occasionally drifting across the grass.

“They say he is smitten,” Lady Whitmore reported, sweeping into Eleanor’s rooms after the sixth day of lessons. “Mrs. Featherington told me he was seen adjusting your stirrup with his own hands.”

“Mrs. Featherington needs better spectacles,” Eleanor said, rubbing her aching thighs. “He was making certain I did not fall off and embarrass him.”

“Mm.” Her aunt settled into a chair, examining Eleanor with shrewd eyes. “And how is the trial proceeding? Has he passed your inspection?”

Eleanor considered the question. She thought of Vane’s patience, the careful way he explained each movement, the warmth of his hand steadying her ankle. She thought of the shadow that passed over his face whenever Richard was mentioned.

“I am still evaluating,” she said.

Lady Whitmore smiled. “I see. Well, I suspect he is evaluating you as well.” She rose, crossing to the door. “Do be careful, my dear. Trials can go either way.”

Eleanor was still pondering that warning when a note arrived, delivered on heavy cream paper sealed with the Vane crest. She broke the seal and read:

*The first week concludes tomorrow. I have arranged an evaluation of my own. Dinner tonight. I shall be on my best behavior—I cannot promise I shall not be charming. — M.*

She reread the note twice. Then, despite herself, she smiled.

---

The dinner was held in a private room at the Clarendon, away from the prying eyes of the ton. Vane had ordered champagne, which Eleanor found both presumptuous and—she was forced to admit—rather winning.

“You have passed the first week,” she said, raising her glass. “I have not fallen off your horse, and you have only been insufferable twice.”

“Only twice?” Vane leaned back, glass in hand. “I shall have to strive harder.”

“Do not trouble yourself. I have grown accustomed to your particular form of arrogance.”

“And I to your particular form of impertinence.” He set down his glass. “I have a confession to make.”

Eleanor tensed. “A confession?”

“The riding lessons were not merely a test of your skill.” He met her eyes. “I wished to see you again. Truly see you. The first time we met, I made you think the worst of me. I wanted a chance to show you otherwise.”

She studied him. “That is not entirely a confession. That is strategy.”

“Then this is the confession: I enjoyed watching you learn. You fell, and you got up. You failed, and you tried again. In a world where women are praised for being fragile, you insist on being strong.” He leaned forward. “I find that I admire you, Lady Ashworth. Against my better judgment, I find that I admire you enormously.”

Eleanor’s throat tightened. “You have had champagne.”

“I had one glass. I am entirely sober.” He held her gaze. “I am also entirely sincere.”

She looked away first—looked away because the intensity of his gaze was too much, threatening to unseat her as surely as any horse.

“The second week begins tomorrow,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt. “I intend to hold you to your promise.”

“The study.” Vane’s expression flickered. “I have not forgotten.”

“Good. Then we shall begin in the morning.”

He nodded slowly. But when she rose to leave, his hand caught her wrist—gentle, insistent.

“Eleanor.” He waited until she met his eyes. “Whatever we find in that room, I need you to know something.”

“What?”

“I chose you,” he said. “For this marriage, for this fight. Not because of the debt, not because of the contract. Because you are the only person I have ever met who makes me believe that justice might be possible.”

She pulled her wrist free—but she did not step away.

“We shall see if you still believe that after tomorrow, my lord.”

She left him standing in the candlelight, his glass still raised in a toast she had not returned. And as she climbed into her carriage, she realized her hands were trembling.